jradley

Spotted at the roundabout near Farnborough Gate, approx 12:15pm on Monday afternoon. Only caught a glimpse but it seemed to be a multi-coloured/ali 7 - not one I recognised as being local. Seeing it out prompted me to get mine out when I got home - left with not a cloud in the sky, got caught in downpour on the way home :) Cheers, John

Proxy spot by my mum, she was the one in the silver Yaris in front no doubt holding you up. She wanted to wind her window down and give you a wave, but thought you might misinterpret it as waving you on into on coming traffic ! She couldn't tell me what engine you had but commented that you had a good exhaust sound, as apparently it went "roar" 😬 Cheers, John

Quoting Domus: ....., little flicker then smoke from the gauge. Switched off (very quickly) removed gauge. Did you establish what caused the smoke ? If it was from the gauge itself then I would be wary of putting it back in the car, as a general rule components which have released some or all of tehir magic smoke don't tend to be too reliable afterwards. If it just that you shorted a connection to ground then the gauge should be ok - if that was the case you were lucky not to blow a fuse bt probably no permanent damage anywhere (assuning the fuse is correctly rated and would blow before the insulation on the wiring melted). Cheers, John

Hi Chris, Yes, that was me in the blue celica. Cheers, John

Hi, Gulf colours, just turned off the Farnham-Odiham road heading towards Crookham Village at about 5:15pm on Fri evening. I was winding down the window on my tin-top to give you a wave but it was a bit too late and you may not have seen me. Cheers, John

Hi, Spotted about 18:15 at the roundabout in Eversley, turning towards Yateley. Gave you a from my tintop (and saw you back) But why was the hood up Cheers, John

Hi, My altternator belt became loose today and on inspection I found that the bolt holding the tensioner arm to block had disappeared 🙆🏻 I've established from searching here that I need an M10x50mm high tensile bolt. My nearest supplier of bolts is screwfix, but they only do a BZP bolt in that size, not steel. I don't know a lot about bolt materials so thought best to ask - is a BZP bolt ok to use for that ? If not, any idea where I can get a high tensile steel bolt that size from, without buying the whole bracket from Caterham ? Cheers, John

Don't know if is similar ? Cheers, John

Ok, so if you already have a bi-amp set up then there is no real reason why you can't go the active crossover route. Using the same amp for both bass and treble will do no harm, the point Adam makes is that you don't need so much power for the treble as you do the bass. Your amps should however have the same gain, ie for any given input signal voltage they have the same ouput voltage. Regarding the power of the amplifier - more speakers are damaged through being under powered than over powered. The reason being is that under powered amps tend to be driven into clipping in an attempt to make the speaker louder. Clipping has nasty effects - the clipped signal is effectively DC which means the bass driver isn't moving and overheats. Also, the point change between sine wave and dc is effectively a very high frequency signal, so the tweeter gets a full whack too. This can knacker a speaker even at low volume. You are unlikely to clip an over powered amp, however you can still damage the speaker by over driving it. The same over heating will happen when the speaker cone is pumelled into its end stop. If your amp is anywhere near matched to the speaker you should be fine. Out of interest what amps and speakers is that you have ? Cheers, John

Is it the crossover inside the speaker cabinet that you are thinking of doing away with, or do you have an external crossover already ? The passive crossover inside the speaker is designed to run with speaker level voltages/currents. External active crossovers are, as you say, designed to be placed in the signal path between the pre-amp (or in professional set-ups the mixing desk) and power amplifiers. I am not aware of any active crossovers that work with speaker level signals, though they might exist, however if the device you are looking at has XLR connectors on it then I don't think it is one of them. I think the real question here is why do you want to ditch the passive crossover ? You have to ask yourself is the cost of all the extra channels of amplification going to yield a better sound than simply upgrading the speakers. Cheers, John

Yes and no - it really depends..... If you buy a clutch stop from CC it is supplied with a fancy bush thing angled at 45 degrees - when I spoke to CC what that was for they told me it is so that the bolt is horizontal when mounted in the angled section of the footwell, with the intention of it meeting the foot end of the pedal. New builds from CC are supplied that way, apparently. However, that only works on the newer design of footwell, where the angled section starts higher than on the older design, so if you have an older design you have to put it in the top of the pedal box, which of course you can also do with the newer design footwell too. Photo here and here Cheers, John

You may find you have to slacken the adjuster bracket (the arm with the slot in it) at the block as well, so that it can waggle up and down. I had to do that on mine when I replaced the belt. Cheers, John

Given that the engine will run on the spare ECU and not the original is pretty much a 99.99% confiramtion the fault is with the ECU. The behaviour of the spare ECU allowing the engine to run for a few seconds and then cutting out with no imobiliser is also exactly as expected (see this thread for similar experience. I'm not sure what your options are for getting the spare ECU re-programmed to not require the 5AS input. There is nothing you can do personally, but I think it might just be possible for someone with appropriate gubbins to re-program it to either not need a 5AS or match it to your old 5AS. I'm not sure though and if you find anyone local that can do this I'd be interested to know. Cheers, John

You need to connect the pin marked "ground" on the switch to the vehicle earth (battery -ve). It is correct that the +ve from the battery goes to the pin marked power and the feed to the fan is the ACC pin. Then, when the switch is on the light will illuminate. Cheers, John

Surely any half decent motor factor could order one in ? If you need it urgently then possibly even Halfords might stock an equivalent. Cheers, John

That's exactly how mine failed too, causing the gauge to read too little and generally erratically. John

Chances are your temp gauge isn't reading accurately and the engine temp is actually warmer than you think it is. My gauge only ever used to read up to 80, then the sender failed altogether... After replacing the sender the gauge read more believable figures and makes more sense for when the fan cuts in and out. I have a new sender which you could borrow if you wanted to give it a try. BTW, my fan was on a lot of time when driving at slow speeds but would cut-out once cruising. May be worth checking what range switch you have in the rad too. Cheers, John

As requested, photos of my one-way valve here and here. I personally like the idea of it pulling up pressure the instant it starts but I know some argue it isn't really necessary. I don't know enough about engines to know either way but for me it offers some peace of mind. Cheers, John

Angus, I might be able to run some silicone into it - it really depends on how good I am at being a contortionist having to get upside down under the dash 😬 That said, jakeand dizzy might have a point - this vibration is a relatively new feature of my car and also realtively recently I had the pedal box lid off to fettle under there. Afterwards it was missing one of it's screws which I have now found so will see if putting it back sorts it out. Cheers, John

Roadsport06, The total cost was about £72 including p+p. The additional parts add about £15 to the cost of splitting the hose. I'm not at home today but will get a photo for you tomorrow. Cheers, John

Hi, I have an annoying rattle which I think is coming from where the scuttle rests on the chassis tube just above the dashboard. It's more of a vibration noise than rattle and only occurs at 3500 rpm, which is really annoying as that is cruising speed in top gear. Is this a common issue and any way to fix it ? Cheers, John

Gingerbread Man, for a test without tacho you could program the shift lights to come on at relatively low RPM. You should also have a rough idea what RPM / MPH you get in a given gear, so say for example you set your shift light to come on at 4000 RPM (about 40 mph in 2nd gear in my car), you will know if you get to 60mph and the light isn't on then it isn't working but no booom. You could well be right about the signal not being strong enough - what ECU do you have ? John

You do specifically need to speak to Matt at Think. When I did this back in February he offered me a number of different options. The one I went for, which is the most expensive but most convenient, was a complete hose assembly that directly replaced the original supplied hose but it has the one way valve in-line with it. That way I didn't have to make up any joints or split the existing hose. I can get a photo later if you like. If you speak to Matt tell him he can reference order number OR262444 for reference. Cheers, John

That's ok then. As it happens I have an account with Farnell and they have it in stock and I was going to be ordering some other bits from them anyway so I can just bung some on the order. Like you say, it's not cheap ! Cheers, John

Roger, Not sure if the 577 you used is the same as the 577 now, but the new 577 is a thread sealant and thread lock, whch puts me off a bit. I think the stuff I really need is loctite 545 or 542. For now I'm seeing how it goes as-is - after a 30 mile blat tonight there was the slightest teeniest trace of oil around the adapter so I might just let it be until next oil change and sort it out then. I can't even be sure it came from there as it may have come from where the pipe fits onto the adapter rather than adapter into filter housing. Cheers, John